News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Main menu

Search form

You are here

Sourdough Pan de Mie

August 13, 2012 - 9:57pm

breaducation

Sourdough Pan de Mie

One of my very favorite snacks is a good old fashion peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I can't get enough of these things. Usually I use a whole grain sandwich bread, like a sprouted wheat loaf, as the base because I prefer a more hearty bread and the health benefits whole grain provides. But every now and then I get the urge to make a totally classic peanut butter and jelly, white bread and all. This was the inspiration behind my latest bake: Sourdough Pan de Mie.

The loaf I decided to make was based off the amazing txfarmer's formula found here. However, this formula calls for retarding the dough overnight and a 6 hour(!) proof time. I definitely did not want to wait that long for my pb&j so I added instant yeast to reduce the bulk to to around 1 hour and the proofing time to 2 1/2 hours. The retarding was skipped all together. This probably cut down on a fair amount of sourness but I was fine with this as I wanted very limited levels of sourness in this bread. I also used whole egg instead of egg whites.

I also altered the way this dough is mixed. Txfarmer did the mixing for her bread in a stand mixer and mixed to a high level of gluten development. I don't have access to a mixer at home so I had to figure out a different way to develop the gluten. I decided to use the method I describe in lesson one on my site with a couple modifications. 1) I folded the dough multiple times after each five minutes rest until the dough resisted more folding and 2) Even after the initial three folds I continued to fold the dough every ten minutes until the end of bulk. This worked very well as I ended up with nice strength despite the dough being surprisingly wet.

The bread turned out exactly as I had hoped! It is quite moist and mild flavored. It is subtly sweet and slightly rich. It is also surprisingly strong for being so soft. A quality that comes in handy when spreading peanut butter on top. I will definitely be making this again the next time I crave white bread.

Perfect for P&J's You can get a similar loaf with no SD tang by using YW, egg and cream as a pullman contained Japanese, Akiko, txfarmer, Shaio-Ping kind of combo bread. You should compare them sometime.

This is some very nice baking and we love the way it looks inside and out. It has to taste great too.

Is it bread or is it sculpture? I can see these stacked subway-style in your bakery's display case, grouted with...Guernsey butter? I'll take two! Pan de Lego. Can't imagine what it must taste like. Like heaven I think. Or custard.

And it's reassuring to know that txfarmer's masterpieces are reproducible by mortals (assuming you are one). Congratulations on your contribution to the rehabilitation of White Bread's bad name. Not bad at ALL!

Thanks so much. I made 6 loaves of your bread yesterday, and they came out really nice. Not as pretty as yours, but nice.

One thing I wonder about, and I've never seen it mentioned. I used my KA mixer, and when finished, my dough was quite wet, so wet I couldn't deal with it. I added flour, as I stretched and folded, which was about the same as kneading, I guess. I added the flour during the mixing with the next batch. Both batches turned out great. I just never hear anyone say to use extra flour if using a mixer. Guess everybody just knows.

All original site content copyright 2016 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom.